President Rodrigo Duterte’s purported verbal agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping allowing Chinese fishermen to fish within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone cannot be implemented, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said Wednesday. Locsin said the President may have been led to believe by his legal advisers that the Philippines can allow other countries to fish in its EEZ if there is an excess of the allowable catch as mandated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. “The verbal agreement cannot be enforced on us because it’s verbal. You need a document to prove an agreement. That’s the way it is,” Locsin said, in an interview with ANC. He added that the informal agreement between Duterte and Xi was “not policy” and the Philippines was not allowing China to fish within the Philippines’ EEZ.

Requejo, R. E., Mariano, N., Blancaflor, M., & Ramos-Araneta, M. (2019, July 4). Locsin junks 'verbal deal' with China. Manila Standard, pp. A1, A2.